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Pop Rock Nation

Category: Reviews

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  • MIXTAPE MONDAY vol. 2

    This week’s mixtape up for review, Big Mike’s “The Rulers Back 2006”

    This mixtape started off with a bang. The 1st track is from Jadakiss, called “It Can Get Ugly”. The Swizz Beatz produced beat is great and we get the normal lyrical lunacy that we have come to expect from Jadakiss on nearly every other mixtape. Jadakiss puts out more excellent mixtape tracks in a month than many rappers do in their whole careers.

    Mobb Deep got on a track with self-proclaimed “soul-hip-hop queen” Mary J. Blige and suddenly sensitive 50 Cent for a very R & B sounding song, “It’s Alright”. I personally miss the 50 Cent that sounded more like a vengeful man then the one we are increasingly hearing, a more sensitive half dollar. Mr. Jackson has gone from wanting to fuck over his enemies to making love to each track. Mobb Deep tries to save face with a more thuggish sounding track “Ain’t No Thug On You”, but ultimately comes up short with sub-par lyrics.

    After some G-Unit’s nonsense, it came time for Dipset’s turn at the mic. Cam’Ron started it off strong with one of the best songs on the mixtape “Ya’ll Can’t Live His Life”. Cam utters one of the more ridiculous lines in recent mixtape memory: “I’m the shit/ Shit, I should rock a diaper Yo/ No homo though”. Then came 50 seconds of a new Juelz Santana track called “Gangsta Muzik”. The highlight of the rest of the Dipset stuff is 40 Cal.’s “It’s Magic”. In the song, 40 does a good job sticking to the song’s theme with a great Houdini/Whodini line and mention of the NBA team from Orlando.

    Other highlights of the mixtape include Lloyd Banks verse on the Avant track “It’s Like That”. Towards the end of the mixtape there is a really good 10-minute freestyle where J.R. Writer gets the nod for best rhymes, but Jae Millz and Stack Bundles also bring some hot lines. About 2 minutes and 25 seconds into the freestyle Jae Millz spits one of the freestyle’s sickest lines: “Nothing they portray to do is mediocre/ The next best thing like Tyra to Oprah”.

    The rest of the mixtape has some good tracks from some lesser-known artists, including Nuci Reyo and his song “Hip-Hop”. Nuci’s passion for the industry pours out on this track. He mentions his admiration for such rap legends as LL Cool J and Run D.M.C., while still giving us his own point of view. Cory Gunz also chimed in with a hot track rapping over a Biggie beat on the song “Kick In The Door”.

    Overall, the mixtape gives the listener a lot of bang for his or her buck. Heavy on lyrics and light on shout-outs, from start to end this mixtape was a joy to listen to. The mixtape also gets points for featuring a hot freestyle and some underground artists.

    OVERALL SCORE: 8 out of 10

    BEST LINE ON THE MIXTAPE:
    “I’m a Coco weigher/ But then again all these deals on the table I feel like a poker player”
    -J.R. Writer

  • MIXTAPE MONDAY vol. 1

    This Week’s Mixtape Up for Review is DJ Kay Slay’s “The Art of War”

    Dj Kay Slay The Art Of War

    This mixtape got off to a bad start. The first thing I heard was an ad for a car dealership in Jamaica, Queens. I hope this isn’t the direction that mixtapes are heading. When I heard the ad, it reminded me of the first time I saw a commercial at a movie theatre before the previews started, a true sickening sign of the times. Once I threw up and got back to listening to this mixtape I liked what I heard.

    Papoose is well featured on this mixtape, being a DJ Kay Slay signed artist. He showcases his flow in both slow and fast speeds on the first track “Faces of Death”, and goes at a more medium pace on “Riding Dirty (remix)” which also features the up-and-coming rapper Chamillionaire. In “Faces of Death”, Papoose gets thoughtful, talking about suicide and examples of ways in which we unexpectedly face death every day. Papoose has had previous mixtape success with songs on the thoughtful side like “Charades” where Papoose raps about his thoughts on the rap industry and “Mother Nature”, a track written about Hurricane Katrina. It’s dealing with tough issues outside the normal realm of hip-hop that separates Papoose as a rapper.

    Cam’ron hosts this mixtape and the Dipset influence is big on this mixtape. The track “War” features Cam and Hell Rell waxing poetic about street drug wars. Jim Jones has a solo track on the tape called “These Niggas Gonna Die Tonite”, where Jim talks about the assassination of his enemies and the further prosperity of his friends. Dipset member 40 Cal rides the beat with one of the better flows I’ve ever heard from him in the song “It’s 40”. On one line 40 even gets a bit religious with a biblical line; “It’s 40, that N.Y. capital G, that corrupt the big Apple like Adam and Eve”.

    This mixtape features rap veterans like LL Cool J on the track “Freeze” and Busta Rhymes on “I love my bitch”. It also manages to get some Southern influence into this mixtape with tracks from T.I., Young Buck and BG. Sprinkled in to the mixtape are a couple of freestyles, along with the usual mixtape shoot-outs promoting the newest Dipset album. Overall a wide ranging mix of the hip-hop industry, along with a lot of tracks your going to want to hear again make this mixtape worth going to your local Bodega and getting.

    OVERALL SCORE: 9 out of 10

    BEST LINE ON THE MIXTAPE:

    “Think I won’t kill, I got more will than a fresh prince”

    -Tommy Gunz